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Tale of Two Cities Job Story

This photograph taken on September 22, 2016 perfectly illustrates the benefits of proactive pavement preservation.

In a truly unique situation, the double yellow centerline in this picture is the boundary between two large New England municipalities. The two communities collaborated and shared the cost to rehabilitate the entire roadway from curb to curb in 2004. The rehabilitation strategy chosen was a 2” mill-and-fill with new hot mix asphalt (HMA).

Six years later in 2010, the road owner agency on the right decided it was time to install a preventive maintenance surface treatment to slow the rate of oxidation and deterioration of the 2004 HMA investment while it was still in relatively good condition. The surface treatment selected was micro-surfacing, with crack sealing being performed as part of the advance preparation work. Unfortunately, the road owner agency on the left was unfamiliar with and unaccustomed to doing surface treatments, and they opted to decline their neighbor’s invitation to partner on the preventive maintenance project.

Flashing forward another 6 years to 2016, we can clearly see that the road owner agency on the right’s decision to preserve the HMA investment with crack sealing and micro-surfacing was a good one. That side of the road is still in good condition, and provides a high level of service and ride quality for the traveling public. The left side, on the other hand, has a much poorer ride quality, has been patched numerous times, and is in need of another costly rehabilitation treatment.

The road owner agency on the right has established itself as a regional leader in the national trend toward more proactive pavement management. And fortunately for the taxpayers of the community on the left, the new regime of public works leaders there have recognized the success of their neighbor’s outstanding pavement preservation program, and have recently begun utilizing a variety of preventive maintenance treatments including crack sealing and micro-surfacing.